MPLA: The party that has governed Angola for 47 years leads the count in the general elections | International

The Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), a party in power for 47 years, leads the vote count in the general elections held this Wednesday in Angola, according to the provisional results published this Thursday by the National Electoral Commission (CNE). . With 97% of the ballot already carried out, the MPLA would obtain 51% of the votes compared to 44% for its main rival party, the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), which would mean that João Lourenço will continue to be president of the country for a new five-year term.

The publication of the first partial and provisional results, which gave victory and an absolute majority to the MPLA, has caused this Thursday thousands of citizens and opposition supporters to take to the streets to protest, especially in Luanda, the country’s capital, where there were some altercations between protesters and police. At the moment, the participation figures are unknown and it is expected that the complete results will be announced in the next few hours. The opposition assures that the victory of the MPLA is “fraudulent”.

The number two of UNITA and candidate for the vice presidency of the country, Abel Chivukuvuku, assured that the results provided by the CNE were not reliable and announced that his party would publish its own results based on a parallel count obtained directly from the counts of each school electoral. “Our polling stations … give us clear provisional indicators of a UNITA victory trend in all provinces,” Chivukuvuku told a news conference Wednesday night.

These have been the closest general elections held in Angola since its independence, in which the two main candidates for the Presidency, the current head of state João Lourenço, who has been in office for five years, and the opposition leader Adalberto Costa Júnior competed for the presidential chair. Lourenço’s MPLA, which has been in power for 47 years, started as the favourite, although wear and tear due to the economic recession caused by the drop in oil prices and covid-19, as well as by the increase in unemployment and poverty, they had placed the charismatic Costa, a 60-year-old engineer, as a serious contender to take the presidency from him.

In appearances prior to the elections and during the campaign rallies, Costa Júnior had warned of the importance of closely monitoring the voting and counting process for fear that the MPLA, which controls all the resources of the Administration, would try some type of fraud. The elections took place without serious incidents and were controlled by at least 2,000 observers from civil society and international organizations. Lucas Quilundo, spokesman for the electoral commission, described the vote on Wednesday as “successful” and added that it was carried out “in an exemplary manner.”

João Lourenço became president of Angola in the 2017 elections after the retirement of his political mentor and president of the country since 1975, José Eduardo dos Santos, who recently died in Barcelona. In those elections, the MPLA was victorious with 61% of the votes. However, its trend had been downward: in 2008 it obtained 82% of the votes and in 2012 72%. If the provisional results announced by the CNE are confirmed, they would be the worst records of the MPLA in its history, although enough to maintain the majority and continue governing.

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